BACKGROUND: As biobanks play an increasing role in the genomic research that will lead to precision medicine, input from diverse and large populations of patients in a variety of health care settings will be important in order to successfully carry out such studies. One important topic is participants' views towards consent and data sharing, especially since the 2011 Advanced Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (ANPRM), and subsequently the 2015 Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) were issued by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP)...

International research is an essential means of reducing health disparities between and within countries and should do so as a matter of global justice. Research funders from high-income countries have an obligation of justice to support health research in low and middle-income countries (LMICs) that furthers such objectives. This paper investigates how their current funding schemes are designed to incentivise health systems research in LMICs that promotes health equity. Semi-structured in-depth interviews were performed with 16 grants officers working for 11 funders and organisations that support health systems research: the Alliance for Health Policy and Systems Research, Comic Relief, Doris Duke Foundation, European Commission, International Development Research Centre, Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation, Research Council of Norway, Rockefeller Foundation, UK Department of International Development, UK Medical Research Council, and Wellcome Trust...

The primary health care in rural areas in Austria is currently determined by challenges such as ageing of the population, the shift towards chronic and age-related illnesses, the specialist medical and hospital-related education and training of physicians' as well growing widespread difficulty of staffing doctor's office. The objective is to realize a general practitioner centered and team-oriented primary health care (PHC) approach by establishing networked primary health care in rural areas of Austria. Using literature research, online survey, expert interviews and expert workshops, we identified different challenges in terms of primary health care in rural areas...

BACKGROUND: Numerous injuries have been attributed to playing on artificial turf. More recently, newer generations of artificial turf have been developed to duplicate the playing characteristics of natural grass. Although artificial turf has been deemed safer than natural grass in some studies, few long-term studies have been conducted comparing match-related collegiate soccer injuries between the 2 playing surfaces. HYPOTHESIS: Collegiate male soccer athletes do not experience any difference in the incidence, mechanisms, or severity of match-related injuries between FieldTurf and natural grass...

Peripheral vascular disease (PVD) is a chronic disabling illness that frequently results in the occlusion of arteries in lower limbs and may cause ischemia, gangrene, or infection. The single most significant factor contributing to both the onset and progression of PVD is smoking, which has addictive properties. Once smoking becomes a habitual behavior, combined with the atherosclerotic process, a disastrous pathway ensues. The aim of this project was to gain an understanding of the beliefs of patients with PVD who smoked...

BACKGROUND: There is a growing recognition of the need to make the built environment in towns and cities more enabling for people with dementia. This study reports the development of a reliable tool to assess the support provided to people with dementia by public and commercial buildings such as council offices, supermarkets, banks, and medical centers as they approach, use, and leave them. METHODS: A three-step process was carried out to develop and establish the reliability of the tool: (1) a review of principles and available tools informed the development and modification of an environmental audit tool of proven utility, (2) the draft tool was subjected to an iterative process of evaluation by a team of people with expertise in design and town planning, people with dementia and their carers, (3) inter-rater reliability and internal consistency were assessed on a sample of 60 public and commercial buildings...

Edgar Ross speaks to Jade Parker, Commissioning Editor: Dr Edgar Ross is a member of the Anesthesia Department at Brigham and Women's Hospital. His main office is in Chesnut Hill, an ambulatory care center for Brigham and Women's hospital. He received his medical degree from Wayne State University School of Medicine and has been in practice for more than 30 years, 20 years in his current position at Brigham and Women's Hospital. His two main clinical interests are; the phone app which is designed to become the main clinical tool for patients and second, the relationship between opioids and angiogenesis...

BACKGROUND: Poor medication adherence contributes to negative treatment response, symptom relapse, and hospitalizations in schizophrenia. Many health plans use claims-based measures like medication possession ratios or proportion of days covered (PDC) to measure patient adherence to antipsychotics. Classifying patients solely on the basis of a single average PDC measure, however, may mask clinically meaningful variations over time in how patients arrive at an average PDC level. OBJECTIVE: To model patterns of medication adherence evolving over time for patients with schizophrenia who initiated treatment with an oral atypical antipsychotic and, based on these patterns, to identify groups of patients with different adherence behaviors...

BACKGROUND: Nonadherence to antipsychotic medication among patients with schizophrenia results in poor symptom management and increased health care and other costs. Despite its health impact, medication adherence remains difficult to accurately assess. New technologies offer the possibility of real-time patient monitoring data on adherence, which may in turn improve clinical decision making. However, the economic benefit of accurate patient drug adherence information (PDAI) has yet to be evaluated...

BACKGROUND: Medication nonadherence is problematic throughout health care practice. Patient nonadherence is a result of several factors, such as financial issues, confusion about the medication, or concerns about possible side effects. Efforts to improve adherence have been implemented, but new strategies are needed to ensure that patients fill their medication prescriptions and adhere to their prescribed use. OBJECTIVE: To investigate whether providing patients with a free 30-day supply of medication at the point of care via a dispensing kiosk-a secure, computerized cabinet placed in the prescriber's office-that provides sample medication and educational materials had a measurable impact on adherence and health care cost...

Despite having the basic tools necessary to appropriately identify and manage individuals with hypertension for over half a century it remains the single greatest contributing risk factor to morbidity and mortality worldwide today. Since diagnosis and effective treatment availability are not issues, this major failing in care can be attributed to inadequate systems of care: systems that have led to only <20% of hypertensive individuals globally having their blood pressure adequately controlled. Even in the US, where it is one of the most common reasons for a primary care visit, and with over $42...

In December 1913, a board of medical officers was appointed to adapt new U.S. Army equipment to the needs of the Hospital Corps. One of the improvements concerned substitution of the satchel-like Hospital Corps pouch used to carry first aid equipment. A waist belt with 10 pockets, known as the medical belt, was devised, and supplied with a tourniquet, adhesive plaster, safety pins, iodine swabs, sublimated gauze, individual dressing packets, gauze bandages, aromatic spirit of ammonia, and common pins. In addition, an ax carrier accommodating a hand ax, a canteen hanger, and a pouch to carry diagnosis tags and instruments were attached to the medical belt...

INTRODUCTION: Law enforcement officers (LEOs) in the U.S. are at an increased risk for homicide. The purpose of this study is to describe the characteristics of homicides of LEOs in 17 U.S. states participating in the National Violent Death Reporting System. This active surveillance system uses data from death certificates, coroner/medical examiner reports, and law enforcement reports. METHODS: This study used quantitative and qualitative methods to analyze National Violent Death Reporting System data for 2003-2013...

BACKGROUND: The dearth of health personnel in low income countries has attracted global attention. Ways as to how health care services can be delivered in a more efficient and effective way using available health personnel are being explored. Task-sharing expands the responsibilities of low-cadre health workers and allows them to share these responsibilities with highly qualified health care providers in an effort to best utilize available human resources. This is appropriate in a country like Nigeria where there is a shortage of qualified health professionals and a huge burden of maternal mortality resulting from obstetric complications like pre-eclampsia...

OBJECTIVE To facilitate surveillance and describe the burden of healthcare-associated infection (HAI) in nursing homes (NHs), we compared the quality of resident-level data collected by NH personnel and external staff. DESIGN A 1-day point-prevalence survey SETTING AND PARTICIPANTS Overall, 9 nursing homes among 4 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Emerging Infection Program (EIP) sites were included in this study. METHODS NH personnel collected data on resident characteristics, clinical risk factors for HAIs, and the presence of 3 HAI screening criteria on the day of the survey...

BACKGROUND: Breakthrough direct-acting antivirals set a new standard in the management of hepatitis C virus (HCV) with regard to cure rates and improved tolerability; however, the health care system is challenged by the cost of these medications. OBJECTIVE: To describe the effect of a comprehensive HCV medication management program on optimized regimen use, prior authorization (PA) modifications, and medication cost avoidance in a state Medicaid program. METHODS: This program consists of a 2-tiered prescriber outreach: (1) regimen outreach to promote optimized regimen selection and (2) refill outreach to support medication adherence...

INTRODUCTION: We investigated the effect of unmet medical need on the mental health of Republic of Korea (ROK) Armed Forces personnel, as most of the service members work in remote areas and often experience such unmet needs. METHODS: This study used secondary data from the 2014 Military Health Survey (MHS), conducted by the ROK School of Military Medicine and designed to collect military health determinants. Descriptive statistics showed the general characteristics of the study populations by variable...